Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Lady Mendl's Invention

I was flipping through my copy of The Twenties in Vogue the other day, and I was reminded of how much I enjoy the book. (The Thirties in Vogue is also quite good.) It's fun to pore over the old photos of socialites wearing chic fashion as well as to read about the hijinks, the frivolity, and the trends of the day.

One of my favorite sections of the book is that which covers the food and cocktail crazes of the era. Back in the 1920s, of course, most people were cocktail mad, drinking such libations as the Corpse Reviver, the Between the Sheets, and, of all the crazy names, the Bosom Caresser. At least, this was what Vogue was reporting at the time. And canapes were also starting to come into fashion, something that was also, evidently, covered by the magazine in great detail. A canape that got an honorable mention in Vogue was one served at Somerset Maugham's home on the Riviera. His canape consisted of "a green olive stuffed with a nut dipped into Gentlemen's Relish, wrapped in a strip of bacon." That sounds tasty to me, but finding Gentlemen's Relish in Atlanta isn't the easiest endeavor.

Of the five or six cocktail recipes that appear in this book, one in particular caught my eye: Lady Mendl's Invention. The book fails to mention the origin of this recipe, but a Google search identified this cocktail by another name, Pink Lady. Did Elsie de Wolfe invent this cocktail? Or, did she adopt it as her own? I can't say, but I mixed one up over the weekend to see what the fuss was about. The cocktail isn't really bad, but it did remind me of the pink penicillin I had to take when I was sick with strep throat as a child. If you liked that taste (and I didn't), you might enjoy this cocktail.

And if any of you know what exactly Lady Mendl's connection was to this cocktail, do tell!

Lady Mendl's Invention*Recipe is based on a 1 1/2 ounce measure. Shake well with broken ice and serve while frothy.

3/4 gin
1/4 grenadine
juice of half a lemon
1 white of egg

This Hoyningen-Huene photo shows the Cubist bar that was designed for home of the Vicomte de Noailles, c. 1928. How dashing was that?

Hoyningen-Huene photo and Fish illustration from The Twenties in Vogue

20 comments:

With cocktails enjoying a resurgence, I highly recommend the PDT Cocktail book, perhaps The Gentleman's Relish will, too. I found a recipe online, http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/11/gentlemens-relish-recipe.html and a place to buy it, http://www.amazon.com/Gentlemans-Relish-Spiced-Anchovy-Relish/dp/B000NUB9YI

Seems to me that Lady Mendel had a very sweet tooth – I cannot imagine getting through a whole cocktail but might be prepared to try (if only for the purposes of historic research, etc.)

Gentleman's Relish is, I think, a variant on anchovy paste which I buy in tubes at either IKEA or Wholefoods. I love it on hot buttered toast –or at least I did before such things as toast, marmalade, Gentleman's Relish, Lemon Curd and butter were forbidden by my waistline.

Patum Peperium, or The Gentleman's Relish, is indeed a 'spiced anchovy relish' to be enjoyed on hot toast. It should be used sparingly. It used to come in small, white, flat pottery jars with it's traditional black lettering. Nowadays, sadly, they are made of plastic.

Victoria, I remember seeing those small white jars of Gentleman's Relish. I also remember my parents coming home from trips to London with small jars from Fortnum & Mason that were decorated with scenes of hunting dogs. They were so charming.

As Blue says, that's one sweet drink, but then, it's not quite the same as the Pink Lady described in (I think) Ludwig Bemelmans' book To the One I Love Best, which adds grapefruit juice & Cointreau to the mix, with the Grenadine just added--I guess--to achieve a rosy blush, not that sort of lurid hue above. But that reminds me, at home I have a bottle of Grenadine that came out of my grandparents' liquor cabinet, and judging from its label, it must date from the 1940s or early 1950s. All I can say is that the stuff tastes nothing like today's Grenadine. I don't know whether that's because they've actually changed the recipe over the years--like Elsie's cocktail--or whether it's just chemical change over half a century, but I do know this: it tastes great. Of course, I've never actually drunk the stuff, just dipped a cocktail stirrer into it and tasted it, but either way, it conjures up a whole lost era.

And I've always heard about Gentelman's Relish but never knew till now what the stuff was. On the other hand, I've been making anchovy toast for years: a half-tube of anchovy paste to a stick of butter, only halfway mixed to look like marble, and kept in a small ceramic ramekin I picked up at the bankruptcy sale of the "Continental Dining" hotel restaurant where I waited table in college. Those were the days. On evenings when I was officially off, I'd still show up early enough to sit in the back corner to help Zora, the World's Oldest Waitress fold our giant pink napkins, while helping myself to a giant pot of extra-strong tea & a half-dozen dinner rolls. Basically, I survived for four solid years on dinner rolls & Bearnaise sauce. It's a wonder I didn't have a heart attack at twenty-two.

Anyway, now that I know the kind of jars Gentlemen's Relish used to come in, I think I need to visit Ebay.

Hello Simply Grand! I haven't had much experience with Grenadine except for the Roy Rogers that I used to drink as a child on special occasions. I believe that if I were to cut back on the amount of Grenadine in Lady Mendl's invention, it might taste less like cough medicine. Perhaps Grenadine has gotten sweeter over the years?

If you ask me, dinner rolls and Bearnaise sauce sure beats the usual college diet of Ramen noodles.

Relatively speaking, today's Grenadine is fairly sweet. I've no experience with the vintage stuff, that said. Lady Mendl was obviously a fan in principle of the sours and these have definitely enjoyed a renaissance in London and elsewhere over the past 3 years

Gentleman's Relish is still enjoyed in some measure here in Britain, though it is far behind the likes of Marmite and other tangy spreads in popularity

Discovered "Gentlemen's Relish" while reading Nancy Mitford- Immediately went to the Internet to find it, which I did on an English food website (Jolly Grub?) along with "English Monkey","Treacle Pudding" and the unfortunately named "Spotted Dick" bought the small size for me and the large size in the black glass container as a gift- Huge hit- HUGE

So sorry about "Gentleman's Relish"; could this be a Plymouth Gin situation? I used to gobble down the stuff at boarding school; on toast. And those Vogue books are great. By the way, if you like that sort of thing (and I know you do), "The Sixties in Queen" is going to be of great interest...And what the devil is "English Monkey"? I'm probably more English (or sort of Scottish) than "Brief Encounter and I've never come across it...

I considered ordering some "Genteman's Relish" from Fortnum & Mason, but the shipping charges would be about four times the cost of the relish itself! And we need to get the bottom of this "English Monkey" thing.

Thanks for the recommendation of the book. I'm off to find it on Abebooks!

Why not amaze your friends and family by making your very own "Gent's Relish"? If you pounded tinned anchovy fillets into unsalted butter, and added black pepper, you would end up with something similar. Had a quick look on the net at "English Monkey". It seems to be a variation on our very own "Welsh Rarebit", ie a melted cheese sauce, thickened with flour and flavoured with Lea & Perrins, poured over toast. I think "English Monkey" could be American. A bit like "English Muffins" which, of course, are about as English as the Greek Prime Minister.

"The Sixties in Queen" is really interesting. It's more about the early 60's (Profumo scandal era) than all that Carnaby St/Blow-Up stuff. Full of original articles, photographs and period ads.